The Marine Museum at Fall River is a cultural gem and contains a wealth of Fall River Maritime History especially Steam Ship and Titanic memorabilia. Discover the art, books, models and many treasures the Marine Museum holds. This is a must see
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The Marine Museum at Fall River is a cultural gem and contains a wealth of Fall River Maritime History especially Steam Ship and Titanic memorabilia. Discover the art, books, models and many treasures the Marine Museum holds. This is a must see resource for landlubbers and mariners alike.

Carol Gafford is a public librarian, family historian, amateur archivist and book savior. She is currently the youth services/outreach librarian at the Swansea Public Library and volunteers for several museum and historical societies including the Marine Museum at Fall River, the Swansea Historical Society and the Bristol Historical and Preservation society. She is the editor of Past Times, the Massachusetts Society of Genealogists and is always looking for a new project to take on.

WALTHAM – The talk coming into Celtics training camp was all about the glory of competition.

With four games in four different cities against three different opponents over a six-day span starting Monday night at TD Garden, those competitions are going to start having some winners and losers.

"This will be a trial week," Celtics coach Brad Stevens said following Saturday afternoon’s two-hour scrimmage session at the team’s Waltham practice facility. "That will not be determined by Monday night. Mostly likely, we’ll flip that around during the week and try to make it better."

With a week of getting to know you, and implementing a new system with a new coach and roster of new players, there wasn’t much time for separation last week in Newport, R.I. Stevens said he would be obsessing about lineups had he been here for six seasons, but for now is more concerned that everybody knows what the plays are than exactly when they’ll be playing.

He said he hopes for much of that to come together over the next week, but allowed that this situation – with many players of similar ability bunched into a handful of positions in the rotation – may allow for a more fluid lineup over the course of the early season than might be ideal.

"It’s funny because the best teams I’ve coached have done it both ways," he said. "I don’t know if there is an exact answer. I would think anybody would say that you’d rather have it where you knew exactly who was playing, and the rotations, and all that stuff. Then again, there are positives to not knowing that."

The positives are generally considered better for motiving young players than for getting the most out of longtime NBA veterans such as 13-year vet Gerald Wallace.

"It’s hard because I’m a big fan of knowing your role when you come out of training camp," Wallace said. "It makes the season a lot easier. It makes coaching a lot easier. It makes playing a lot easier.

"When you know your role, and you know what you’re supposed to do and what’s expected of you, then you are accountable to those actions. We’ve still got a couple of days, a couple of preseason games coming up, then we’ll go from there."

Stevens said the most important part of filling the eventual roles is embracing them, and noted that Wallace is one player who has embraced everything that’s been asked of him over the past week.

"Guys respect him for a couple of reasons," Stevens said. "No. 1 is because he’s been a good player in this league. No. 2 is that he works hard and he practices hard. He didn’t get here until a little later than some of the guys, but it wasn’t because he wasn’t keeping himself in good condition. He was ready to go when he stepped on that practice floor Tuesday morning. He elevates the competitiveness of any group he’s with."

Although his lengthy absence from Waltham this summer caused concern that he wasn’t not on board with the trade from a championship contender in the Brooklyn Nets to a self-professed rebuilding squad in Boston, he was upbeat about his new start Saturday.

"Newport was great," he said. "I think we had a great training camp. The guys tried hard. It’s a learning process. You can’t expect us to come out here and be 100 percent perfect with a new coach, a new system and a bunch of new guys.

"But I think the effort is there. Guys are trying. Guys are really wanting to get better. Guys really want to improve. That’s all you can ask for at this point of the season with a team like this."

Wallace’s stay in Boston got off to a fun start on Friday when he took advantage of the day off to take in Game 1 of the Red Sox playoff series against the Rays. He said on media day that he is a big fan of the Patriots and Red Sox – especially Tom Brady and David Ortiz – and has a memorabilia room of items from them set up in his Alabama home.

On Friday, he got to meet Ortiz and Dustin Pedroia for the first time at Fenway.

"I enjoyed myself," he said. "I had fun. I’m a big Red Sox fan. They won, so obviously it was a big day for me. Got a tour. The history of it. Saw some amazing things. My favorite players are David Ortiz and Dustin Pedroia. I got to meet them. So the whole day was special to me.

"A couple of fans recognized me," he added. "When I went to the restaurant the chef recognized me. I think a lot of them knew who I was. Some of them were 50/50. They didn’t know if it was me or not."

Back on the court Saturday, Wallace said he was relieved it was a day of scrimmaging with referees and game situations than more drills like in the three days in Newport.

"For me, 13 years in, I’d rather do the scrimmage than all the drills and three-on-three," he said. "I think my body works a little bit better when you’re flowing instead of the drills when we’re stopping and moving, stopping and moving.

"One of the biggest things we’re trying to cut down on are turnovers. But this week it’s kind of hard because, for myself, as soon as the coach draws up a play I have to go up to the big and ask, ‘Are you popping or are you rolling? What do you like to do?’ It’s an adjustment. But it’s something we have to do because I’ve never played these guys and they’ve never played with me."

Stevens admitted he used the scrimmage to get used to some of the situations he’s never had to deal with in college as well.

"You talk about something as simple as a late-game situation where you’re up two shooting a free throw with three seconds left," he said. "In college, if you make the free throw the other team has to go the length of the floor to score on you whether they call a timeout or not. In the NBA, you don’t. It changes things quite a bit."

Scott Souza covers the Boston Celtics for the MetroWest Daily News and GateHouse Media. He can be reached at 781-98-8006 or ssouza@wickedlocal.com. Follow him on Twitter @scott_souza.